Learning non-classical piano

TC3

Pallas I might have mentioned this before, but I LOVE the Westworld version of Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun."

Pallas

TC3 I might have mentioned this before, but I LOVE the Westworld version of Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun."

I think I have at least two arrangements of that piece. I love these things such an unreasonable amount I have considered buying a saloon piano for the music room. To sit with the digital, and the YUS5 upright. I came super close to bringing home an unreasonably priced Steinway upright that had a very promising slightly janky tone. But I already have two pianos and this madness needs brakes.

Pallas

This is a forum, not a blog, but I made a long post, so if you're upset about long posts, skip this one!

Ok, and here's 1 of 2 of my favorite Radiohead pianist / arrangers (the other is at the end). I have Josh Cohen's Radiohead playbook in my dream horde, and he makes up 1/3 my personal trinity of "non-classical" reasons why I want to learn how to read sheet music and have the skills necessary to play "xyz-mumble-level" music, whatever the heck that even is. I started with film soundtracks like The Man From Snowy River, which, if I work hard I might be able to play next year, then I followed the bouncing ball into kerblam OH NO. Cue video.

Me, kerblammed: "Looks like my dreambook is much more difficult than I expected, so I guess I'm gonna need more skills. Let's see, what kind of skills?" So off I go to research My Dude Josh, and I find this description of his work. I imagine it might look like B.S. It does not look B.S.ssy to me. It looks like starlight.

"Josh Cohen (b. 1984 Auckland, New Zealand) is an Australian composer, pianist and ambient artist based in Berlin known for a unique style that merges jazz and modern classical music, as well as spirited live performances inspired by electronic music sets."

"Cohen’s innovative and improvisational approach to playing conjures all the dynamism of iconic electronic music producers merging it with the rich atmospheres of Impressionist pianists. A unique synthesis of classical and jazz training underscores his sound but it is the sense of space, simplicity and intensity of emotion that have driven over 20 million YouTube views and granted Radiohead’s approval for songbooks featuring Cohen's idiosyncratic arrangements to be released by their publisher Faber Music."

"Okie dokie, little bean, little egg, little bug. So skills, skills, what skills am I gonna need? - It looks like all of them?"

And let me be clear. Do I think I'll ever be able to play Josh Cohen's stuff? You know what, I don't know. Very probably not! But the question is: do I care about attainment, or am I living a dream just having a piano? (It's the 2nd one.) I will strive as hard as I can toward a dream on one hand, while also showing up every day to obsess over my itty bitty kinda dumb sounding arrangement of the Entertainer, on the other. Will this silly piece get me from here to there? Well. I need to practice making slightly bigger jumps in the left hand, so. That's probably one of the 99,999,999 skills one needs to play this arrangement of Paranoid Android. Will playing this piece get me further away? No. It will get me at least one measure closer. Let's play!

Does any of this bother me? No. I get perfect sleep at night playing Alfred 1 badly, with Josh Cohen's playbook sitting in my dragon stash with a little sparkle. It's next to Joe Hisaishi, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Philip Glass, Vince Guaraldi (Charlie Brown Christmas), and Debussy, and various lunatic Beethoven sonatas I will never have the skill to play. There's more chance of life on Mars. More than one person in my orbit has implied or outright said I'm crazy, I'll burn out, I'm arrogant, I'm dumb, I'm delusional. Fine. Cool. But what I'm absolutely not is afraid to fail, afraid to work, afraid to fall short, afraid of embarrassment, afraid of judgement, afraid of crying. I AM afraid of self-sabotage and perfectionism. I'm afraid of bowing my head to the story that I am less than, and that Beautiful Dream is the destroyer. Shoot low to reduce the chance of failing is not my jam. Lemme tell ya, I have already failed stupendously at twelve different big dreams, and I'm still alive and kicking, and now I have a G-d PIANO, and my retirement, for all you can eat practice, as long as I don't injure myself.

I'm not sharing to be special, to boast, blah blah blah. I'm sharing to be one voice in the wilderness to some kid Googling into the night, so they can find one person on the piano boards who is "pro wild and crazy dreams." Because life is complicated, and dreams are not arrogant, they can be a life-affirming, a rational reach toward beauty in an often hard, disappointing daily reality. I touch my piano like it's a lifeboat, but also like a toy, because it is. It can be both.

Everything I just said goes a million times for Christopher O'Riley, even though the chance I will ever play his pieces is even more ludicrous. Will that stop me from wanting, wishing, and striving to at least play around Level 5? No. No, it will not stop me. He will inspire me every day. The dream of playing alt/rock "songs" in his crazy style gives me rainbows of vicarious joy. There is nothing anyone can say that'll convince me dreaming of this music coming from my piano is any more self-destructive than my habit of taking tens of 1000s of photos a year in the hope that one will maybe turn out kinda ok enough to frame. I have the hard drive space, so why the heck not.

Here's Christopher, playing Radiohead. My God.

If you made it to the end of my TEDTalk, thanks! 🤣

TC3

Pallas Well said, Pallas. I feel the same way. I'm not ever going to play at a pro level, but I think I'll be able to make some nice sounds come out of my piano once in a while, and it gives he something to fill my existence that feels worthwhile and satisfying, no matter what level I attain along the way.

ranjit

Pallas So skills, skills, what skills am I gonna need? - It looks like all of them?"

Not quite. Have you tried learning the piece? It does not look too technically complicated (I say that not to discourage you.) I would try to work on the specific challenges in the piece. The syncopated rhythm sounds rather difficult, so practicing that in isolation might get you a long way.

It reminds me of the Fantaisie Impromptu. I spent a month purely working on 4:3 rhythms in a dozen different ways until it clicked. Once it did, much of the rest of the piece fell into place.

Pallas

TC3 Care to give us a peek into your dream book? ❤️ I always want to know what lights people's jets.

TC3

Pallas Well, I don't necessarily aspire to super flashy and fast technique to achieve my playing goals, which makes them reasonably attainable. I'm in love with blues and boogie piano, and spend most of my time working on that. My heroes are Leroy Carr (first and foremost), Charlie Spand, Big Maceo Merriweather, Jimmy Yancey, and many others. I'd like to get to a point where I have enough of their songs in my repertoire that I could play gigs of two or three sets. My biggest concern is that I don't play as consistently and confidently as I'd like, but I know that will come with experience.

Of course, this also means I need to work on my singing. Outside of the purely instrumental boogie tunes. blues is first and foremost a vocal art form, with the instruments there to accompany and/or imitate the voice (for piano, primarily the former; other instruments such as guitar are better for the latter). To that end, I'm working on my singing, and hoping someday not to sound quite so dull ...

Thanks for asking!

Pallas

TC3 Well, that sounds like terrific fun to me. Thank you for name dropping, because I do love to go YouTube prospecting with a new list. I had never heard of the various subdivisions of jazz and blues until I got to the blues section in my Alfred book and started clicking around. Then I realized that yes, I had heard these styles all my life but never knew the words "boogie-woogie" in blues, or "stride" in ragtime. The veil of ignorance lifts slowly. Thank you for sharing. ❤️

TC3

Pallas Believe me, is all such a rabbit hole. I read about blues and related music all the time, and I'm always learning something new!

Pallas

ranjit You're right! I have not tried learning the piece!

You know, I think I came to the same conclusion probably when you were typing. I opened the music and it's certainly no Waldstein but before I could read music at all, the book was just ants on the page. I couldn't tell the difference between those pieces and Glass or Liszt. It was just all completely over my head. I hadn't looked at either of those videos or the scores since I started this past September, and they still sound very difficult (like you said, the polyrhythms are not easy) but it no longer looks exactly like Mars. But it still looks really far from where I'm standing.

I take this as kind of exciting to be honest. Each time I open my Snowy River book I can wrap my head around parts more easily. At some point, I'm going to open it and my target piece in that book won't be any harder than the method book piece I'm working on. Then I'll start learning it. If I keep working very hard, it's possible the same thing will happen with Josh Cohen. "Never" becomes "in this lifetime" becomes "years" becomes "maybe next year."

Kinda cool. If you keep showing up and learning, over time more doors open.

ShiroKuro

ranjit btw I finally had a chance to listen to Parrino's Billie Jean. I think it's awesome! I'm pretty sure I have heard this before, but yeah, really well done and captures the feel, imo.

This is a bit of thread drift, but I always feel like a solo piano cover of a pop song with lyrics should meet two criteria: 1) it "clicks" for someone who knows the original, and 2) it is compelling for someone who doesn't know the original. Not everyone will agree with these of course.

But the Billie Jean cover meets these criteria, IMO. Also, Peter Bence's covers of Despacito and Attention both meet them as well. I actually heard Bence's piano versions before I heard the originals, and I fell in love with both pieces. Only later, when I heard the original of Despacito did I go and find the original Attention. And hearing the originals really underscored how good his cover versions were.
Bence's arrangements are brilliant IMO.

Pallas

ShiroKuro Bence is out of this world. ❤️❤️❤️

rogerch

Contributing to thread drift…

Have you seen/heard this? I think it’s absolutely fantastic and I’ve been watching it obsessively!

Sophia

thepianoplayer416

Darrius Simmons just 18 appeared on the Steve Harvey Show. Bown without all the fingers on both hands but plays piano and compose his own music. He plays piano with just 4 fingers instead of 10. A few years ago his online videos impressed the Korean composer Yiruma who wrote "River Flows in You" that he was invited to perform with Yiruma at Carnegie Hall.

The first part of the video is the interview between Darrius & Steve. He starts playing around 6 1/2 min. into the video.

The majority of pieces we play were written for normal people with 10 fingers. Some are specifically written for pianists with just 1 hand (5 fingers). With just 4 fingers, every piece he plays need to rearranged to be playable up to 4 notes at a time. The playing is mostly done by ear since most sheet music is written for normal people with 10 fingers.

People who get into Classical music tend to play by the score note for note than improvise around a theme.

SouthPark

thepianoplayer416 Darrius Simmons

I didn't know about him until your link. That guy certainly did hard yards. We know in advance that if he can and does do what he does with four fingers, then can imagine what he could do with ten fingers. But at the same time - it is showing that musical elegance and magic does not necessarily require complex chords, fancy fast finger work, fancy fast scale runs, fancy fast arpeggs, and of course the 'cliche' gripped runs up and down the scale etc.

There is a heap (unlimited amount actually) of music out there that is so beautiful and elegant - such as what he played - and it's second to nothing. Second to no-one. And that's exactly what I'm saying. The driver does count. And when paired with a beautiful instrument - it is the pair that will generate that musical magic - together - as one.

As in ... for anybody that likes piano and music, and as long as you can push 1 key ... whichever way you can ... and push another one at some time after that, and hear the note(s) ... then you're in business. And just keep doing the hard yards.

SouthPark

Because billie jean was mentioned in this thread --- I decided to just do something - 20 mins or so ago, and recorded this unrefined one.

We can call it anything - such as billie jean on a mission with a slight mash beginning. Most likely obvious in the meaning to some hehe -- but the hints are in there hehe.

The main thing is to just 'do' ---- get foot-in-door. And then later see if there is something that can be done to it - to build on it, rework it, get more feeling, dynamics, more nuances, more substance, more counterpoint, more elegance etc. Evolve/push it in a different direction. Make some of it unpredictable. Element of surprise.

Foot-in-door is the first step.

billie jean on a mission - WAV

billie jean on a mission - FLAC

The above are identical music - except the flac file is about three times smaller than wav.

WieWaldi

TC3 Over years of lurking at various discussion forums, I've seen many variations of the following exchange:

Q: "I want to learn piano, but not classical piano. I have no interest in classical piano, I just want to learn [insert non-classical genre here] piano. Any advice?"
A: "Spend years learning classical piano first ... "

I am late at the party, but this reminds me on some of my friends visiting another school that teached latin:
Me: "Why do you learn latin? This language is dead, is it?"
Her: "If you speak latin, you learn other languges faster"
Me: "If I want to learn italian, why not go for italian directly?"
Her: "Knowing latin helps you to understand italian way better."
Me: "How does this work?"
Her: "Italian evolved out of latin. And latin is more complex, so it gives you the best theory underground."
Me: "Isn't it enough to know only complexity of italian?"
Her: "But then you don't understand the language."
Me: "So the average Italian does not understand his mother language?"
Her: "You don't understand... 🙄"
Me: "Okay, how much time do I safe learning italian, if I know latin beforehand?"
Her: "One or two years, probably"
Me: "How long does it take to learn latin?"
Her: "About five."
Me: "Okay... but then the total time is"
Her: "Shut up! 😡"

This "start with classical" is very similar in my opinion. The only fair point I can see, is how music evolved. Classical is the oldest genre (if I count hymns and chorals to classical). This means, all the people of that time period have learned classical music without another music genre as educational background. And this is the ultimate proof you can start with classical music from the scratch.
And music schools are doing this for centuries (and it works, obviously).
This means all young kids sent to a music school are starting with classical music. And some of them are becoming great musicians. Some of them even the best musicians out there.
And this is why you will always hear the same argument: "Start with classical, because the best musicians started with classical, too."

thepianoplayer416

It’s ok to learn about different genres of music. Much of Western music evolved from “Classical” which is a broad classification for music including the Renaissance, Baroque, Classical style of Mozart & Beethoven, Romantic.

Jazz & Pop evolved independently in America. There are other music traditions that did not evolve from the Western music traditions in Europe.

Many people including myself started music early playing some Classical pieces. Years ago I still remember the “Old French Song” by Tchaikovsky out of a recorder book. There were arrangements of “Twinkle” originally by Mozart and versions of the Haydn “Surprise” for absolute beginners.

To say that Classical music is a prerequisite for learning other genres is a bit of a stretch.

SouthPark

thepianoplayer416 To say that Classical music is a prerequisite for learning other genres is a bit of a stretch.

It's true in what you wrote above. Because in life etc ... it is known that (cliche) - problem solving - or (cliche) reaching a solution/objective can often have more than one pathway ... or various pathways. And doesn't necessarily start at the same condition or point.

Today ... in most cases ... people learned or learn from what has been accumulated in and around the world ... techniques and examples. Accumulated over the centuries/years, and some of that distilled, evolved.

And people also learn from what composers taught directly or indirectly in the music they wrote/played etc, which they themselves (the composers) learned techniques too ... and applied, and generated new stuff ... including unique melody and patterns, counterpoint etc.

JohnCW

thepianoplayer416 To say that Classical music is a prerequisite for learning other genres is a bit of a stretch.

True. And not only did some popular music not develop from classical background, it would be fair to say the overwhelming majority say hasn't . Most of it has its roots in traditional folk music, Irish giving rise to bluegrass and country, and African rise to blues and jazz and in turn pop and rock.

Bellyman

ranjit I just don't see someone without classical training pull this kind of thing off.

Generally correct, with very few exceptions. Outliers might include the likes of Art Tatum or Errol Garner, both of which were amazing players with little classical training.

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